The Dissertation Process: The title, aim & objectives.

This is a brand new series on my blog about my personal dissertation process and featuring some tips & tricks that I hope to learn along the way. I am currently undertaking my dissertation this year & aim to document it in real time, citing both the good and bad times, the highs and lows and making it easier for fellow dissertation writers to see that they are not the only ones panicking when it comes to this academic piece of writing.

So I recently had my first meeting with my dissertation tutor, a fifteen minute conversation where it was established that I needed to focus down my idea to a specific area. I cannot say that I left that meeting with a clear understanding of the next steps, just a longer list of things that I need to consider and research up on before I hand in my final proposal with the title, aim and objectives.

Now at my University we have certain deadlines to hand things in to get feedback from out tutors, with the final deadline being the 30th April. The first deadline that I am to face my final proposal, which includes my proposed title, the aim of the overall essay (fundamentally the reason for the whole dissertation) and finally the objectives – which are more specific things of want to find out.

The thing that has made writing this very simple form harder to fill in is not knowing how much academic literature there is about my topic. And to top it off I have been told contradicting things from both lecturers and friends in regards to this, from doing the diss on a topic you are very interested in or focusing more of a topic that has more academic backing. Now that makes this difficult! Why couldn’t they make the process much more simple?

However I have decided, whether this is the best idea or not, to focus my time and attention on doing my dissertation on the topic that I am very passionate about & want to focus on in my career. Because if I am going to dedicate my whole final year social time to reading academic journals & writing 10,000 words I am going be damned if I do it on a subject just because there may be some more straight forward secondary research I can read!

So after a lot of going back & forth I have decided to do a study into the importance of education events and the role it plays in engaging students.

I would love to know if you have a subject topic picked out, and the types of things you are enjoying (or not) about the dissertation writing process!

Are you also writing your dissertation this year or have you recently completed one & have any tips or tricks you want to share? I would love to hear them and about your process with writing your diss! Please let me know them either in the comments below or by sending me a tweet to @imdamnstudent

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I'm a Damn Student, What Do I Know? is an Events Blog for Event Students, Graduates & Industry Professionals.

Started in 2011 by Caitlin Kobrak the blog covers a range of topics that link to the events industry & studying.